Vatican Excommunicates Former Ambassador to U.S. After Finding Him Guilty of Schism
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò repeatedly questioned Pope Francis' legitimacy and Vatican II reforms.
By Gary Gately
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò — the former Vatican ambassador to the U.S. who has repeatedly questioned the authority of Pope Francis and the reforms of the Second Vatican Council — has been found guilty of schism and excommunicated from the Catholic Church.
“His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well known,” the Vatican’s doctrinal office said in a statement today.
The 83-year-old Italian archbishop will retain his title but be forbidden to celebrate Mass, receive or administer sacraments or hold official positions in the Church.
Viganò posted on X today the text of the excommunication decree and quoted Jesus’ words from Luke when religious leaders rejected him: “I say to my brother Bishops: ‘If you are silent, the stones will cry out.’”
Since alleging in 2018 a vast Vatican cover-up of sexual misconduct by U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Viganò has been in hiding but has often taken to social media to launch vitriolic attacks on Francis and to espouse his right-wing conspiracy theories.
The Vatican said the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) imposed the rare penalty of excommunication yesterday and informed Viganò of it today.
Only the Holy See can reverse it, but the Vatican said: “Excommunication is considered a ‘medicinal’ penalty that aims at inviting the offender to repentance. As such, there is always the hope that the subject of excommunication will return to communion.”
Viganò announced on social media on June 20 that he had been charged with schism and published the full decree detailing the charge against him. He had been summoned to Rome to answer the schism charge against him. When he refused to appear, he was assigned a public defender, the Vatican said.
Statements he has made, the decree charging him with schism said, resulted “in a denial of the elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church: denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis, breaking of communion with him, and rejection of the Vatican Council II.”
Defiant to the end, Viganò, referring to Francis by his name before he became pope, wrote in a June 20 online statement: “I consider the charges against me as a reason for honor. I reject and condemn the scandals, errors and heresies of Jorge Mario Bergoglio. With this ‘Bergoglian church,’ no Catholic worthy of the name can be in communion.”
In other statements on social media, Viganò has called Francis a “servant of Satan” and a “false prophet” who should be removed as pope and arrested.
“His public statements manifesting his refusal to recognize and submit to the Supreme Pontiff, his rejection of communion with the members of the Church subject to him, and of the legitimacy and magisterial authority of the Second Vatican Council are well known.” — Vatican’s doctrinal office
Viganò has often attacked Francis, the 87-year-old Jesuit pope, for what the archbishop has called “uncontrolled immigration,” his support of “LGBTQ+ ideology” and the blessing of homosexual couples and for his commitment to preserving the environment and his criticism of climate change deniers.
Viganò also became known for his often-incendiary social media posts supporting former President Donald Trump, opposing COVID-19 vaccines, spreading of Q-Anon conspiracy theories and rejecting the Second Vatican Council.
But he turned against Trump in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and wrote then that Russia had “an epochal role in the restoration of Christian Civilization, contributing to bringing the world a period of peace from which the Church too will rise again, purified and renewed in her ministers.”
Viganò delivered yet another online diatribe attacking Francis on June 28, faulting the pope for his promotion of COVID vaccines, his limits on traditional Latin Masses and the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with China on the appointment of bishops.
“I have no intention of submitting myself to a show trial in which those who are supposed to judge me impartially in order to defend Catholic orthodoxy are at the same time those whom I accuse of heresy, treason, and abuse of power,” Viganò wrote.
His increasingly vicious attacks on Francis in recent days have prompted even some traditionalist Catholic groups and high-profile conservatives to distance themselves from him.
They include the Society of St. Pius X, whose founder, the late French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Viganò invoked in his June 28 statement.
“His defense is mine; his words are mine; and his arguments are mine,” Viganò wrote.
But the society, founded post-Vatican II in 1970, said in a response it posted online: “The crime of schism [against Viganò] is put forward because of certain public affirmations negating the elements necessary to maintain communion with the Catholic Church.
"According to him,” the society said, “Pope Francis is not a pope. On this point, neither Archbishop Lefebvre nor the fraternity he founded would agree. Archbishop Lefebvre and the Society he founded have not ventured down that perilous road.”
The conservative Italian newspaper Il Foglio proclaimed in a recent editorial referring to the schism charge against Viganò: “Well Done, Holy Father. Mercy and human patience are all well and good, but in the end there’s a limit. The Church is too serious a thing to allow the diffusion, almost the metastasis, of trash inside herself.”
The Il Foglio editorial noted that since 2018, Viganò has appeared often in videos “with increasingly apocalyptic messages and with homilies spread by sites and blogs with a similar vision of the world and of the Church.”
But some conservative Catholics, including clergy, criticized the Vatican’s decision to excommunicate Viganò .
The conservative Catholic publication LifeSiteNews launched an online petition today titled “I stand with Archbishop Viganó.” (More than 4,600 people had signed the petition four hours after the publication posted it online.)
In a news story about the petition, LifeSiteNews wrote: “LifeSite’s petition expresses support for Archbishop Viganò and his many ‘courageous public statements’ while also noting that there has been a ‘blatant double standard’ the Vatican has taken towards him with this unjust decree in comparison to truly dissident clerics and prominent laity across the world.”
“I say to my brother Bishops: ‘If you are silent, the stones will cry out.’” —Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, X post
The publication said Viganò’s excommunication comes as the Slovakian priest Marko Rupnik remains in good standing with the Vatican, despite being expelled from the Jesuits in 2023 after being “widely accused of sexually and spiritually abusing numerous persons, including nuns as well as men.”
The petition also says that prominent priests and bishops, as well as cardinals and public figures, are “given wide latitude to promote heretical teachings” and that “Francis himself gives them his implicit and explicit support to do this.”
The petition went on to call Argentinian Cardinal Victor Fernandez, who serves as head of the DDF, the mastermind behind Fiducia Supplicans, a document that endorses blessings for homosexual “couples.”
LifeSiteNews’ petition criticizes the Vatican for keeping in “good standing” President Joe Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, despite their pro-choice stances, and Jesuit priest Father James Martin. Martin, the petition says, “repeatedly encourages persons who have homosexual and gender confusion tendencies to act out their sinful impulses.”
The petition also criticizes Francis for his close ties to German Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, who has called for ordaining women and married men to the priesthood.
LifeSiteNews’ petition quotes Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, as telling Religion News Service on June 24: “I think the pope would be wise and prudent if he were to not excommunicate Archbishop Viganò” because doing so would only “increase divisions” within the Church.
Viganò, the Vatican’s apostolic nuncio to the U.S. from 2011-2016, had served as the secretary-general of the Governorate of Vatican City State from 2009 to 2011.
Pope John Paul II consecrated him as a bishop in 1992 and he spent most of his career working in a diplomatic capacity for the Holy See.
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